Conversational search refers to a natural interaction between a user and a search entity. A search entity could be a web browser, for example. Conversational search includes reference resolution where entities (e.g., nouns, subjects) are identified and resolved (mapped) to alternate identifiers (e.g., pronouns). Co-referencing is when two or more variables refer to the same thing. For example, “Sarah said she would come;” ‘Sarah’ and ‘she’ both refer to the same thing (i.e., Sarah).
Today, co-reference resolution is not handled very well in search. In particular, search engines are not able to resolve plural pronouns (e.g., they), resolve partial names (e.g., Katie referring to Katie Holmes), provide relevant web results since they often times resolve the pronoun to the wrong entity, co-reference across domains, or co-reference across any device and/or platform.